Web Server for Multi-Version Web Documents

ABSTRACT

A repository server that provides stored copies of Web-accessible documents A client of the repository server may register a document in the repository server. The repository server makes a copy of the registered document and returns a repository URL for the copy to the client. The repository URL may be used to fetch the copy from the repository URL. Registration further relates the stored copy to its document URL, to an identifier for the stored copy, to a fingerprint that is a condensed representation of the stored copy&#39;s content and can be used to determine degrees of similarity other than match-no match, and to a set of stored copies having similar content. The fingerprints are used to compute similarity. The similarity computation further employs comparisons of links in the documents and of document URLS to determine whether it is necessary to use the fingerprints to compute similarity.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

The present patent application is a divisional of U.S. Ser. No.10/839,938, Zhe Wu, Archiving Web documents using unique documentlocators, filed 6 May 2004, which will issue 30 Mar. 2010 as U.S. Pat.No. 7,689,601. The claims of the present application are directed to thesubject matter of claims 62-77 of U.S. Ser. No. 10/839,938 as filed.Those claims were canceled in response to a restriction requirement madeDec. 22, 2006. The entire Specification and Figures of U.S. Pat. No.7,689,601 are hereby incorporated by reference for all purposes into thepresent patent application.

STATEMENT REGARDING FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH OR DEVELOPMENT

Not applicable.

REFERENCE TO A SEQUENCE LISTING

Not applicable.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The invention is generally related to the Internet and more specificallyrelated to the problem of accessing and tracking content that isaccessible via the Internet.

2. Description of Related Art

The Internet, and in particular, the World Wide Web that is madepossible by the Internet's HTTP protocol, have revolutionized the way inwhich we access information. FIG. 1 shows how the information accesssystem 101 provided by World Wide Web 123 looks to a user of a computer127 that has a Web browser and a hard drive 129 for persistent storageof data. Such a system is termed a web client 125. In addition to webclients 125, system 101 contains Web servers 111 that are accessible viaworld wide web 123. As shown in detail with regard to Web server 111(a),a Web server includes a processor 113(a) and data storage 119(a) whichcontains documents 121 which are accessible via the Web. These documentsare termed in the following Web documents. A web document 121 maycontain any kind or mixture of kinds of information; it may for examplebe an image or an audio file as well as a text document.

To access a document on the World Wide Web, a user of a Web browser inclient 125 provides a URL (uniform resource locator) for the Webdocument to Web 123. Web 123 routes the URL to a web server 111(i) thatcontains the Web document specified by the URL. Web server 111(i)responds to the URL by providing the specified Web document via the Webto Web client 125. The browser then displays the Web document. Webdocuments typically contain links, i.e., URLs to other Web documents.When a user selects one of these links by clicking on it, the browserprovides the URL to Web 123 and that Web document is provided to the webclient by the Web server in which the Web document resides as justdescribed.

An example URL is shown at 123. A URL has three main components:protocol 105, which specifies the Internet protocol that will be used toretrieve the Web document, in this case, the http protocol which is usedin the World Wide Web, host name 107, which specifies Web server 111(i)upon which the Web document is stored, and Web page source info 109,which specifies how the Web document is to be located or otherwiseproduced in Web server 111(i). In example URL 103, Web page source info109 is a pathname which indicates how the Web document is to be locatedin a file system accessible to Web server 111(i); in other URLs, Webpage source info 109 may specify a program that queries a database tolocate the Web document or even a program that constructs all or part ofthe Web document on the fly. Web page source info 109 is interpreted inWeb server 111(a) by executing source info interpretation code 117(a).

The complete syntax for a URL is the following:

<protocol_name>://<host_name>:<port_no>/<pathname>? <parameter_list>

The <protocol_name>, <host_name>, and <pathname> have already beenexplained; <port_no> specifies the port on which Web server 111(a) islistening for the information specified by Web page source info 109;application programs for widely-used protocols such as the HTTP protocolhave default port numbers which client 125 supplies for the protocol ifno port number is specified in the URL. <parameter_list> is a list ofparameters which are interpreted by source info interpretation code 117;the parameters may specify a program to be executed and data parametersfor the program. The parameter list is made up of one or more parametername-parameter value pairs that are separated by a & character:

<parameter_name>=<parameter_val>&... &<parameter_name>=<parameter_val>

Whenever a Web client 125 is connected to a physical network thatprovides access to World Wide Web 123, Web client 125 can access any Webserver 111 that is operative at that time. Since most Web serversoperate continually, most information that is available via the WorldWide Web is available at any time from anywhere. Because that is so, Webusers tend not to make copies of information that they have retrieved inWeb client 125; instead, they save the URL of the Web document thatcontains the information in a list 131 of interesting URLs. One exampleof such a list is the “Favorites” or “Bookmarks” list provided by mostWeb browsers. When the user wants to access the information again, theuser simply clicks on the URL in the Favorites list and thereby providesthe URL to the browser.

Saving URLs instead of the Web documents they refer to has bothadvantages and disadvantages. Both stem from the dynamic nature of theWorld Wide Web. A URL is not a kind of library card catalog number for aWeb document. A library card catalog number for a book uniquelyidentifies a particular edition of a book. If a new edition of the bookcomes out, it receives a new library card catalog number. The new cardcatalog number will be similar to the number for the other edition,since both editions will be classified in the same manner, but it willnot be identical to the number for the other edition. Because eachedition has its own library card catalog number, a reader who writesdown the card catalog number for a particular edition and ten yearslater presents the number to a library that has that edition willreceive the edition.

A URL, by contrast, only identifies a Web server 111(i) and a Webdocument which the server will return in response to the Web page sourceinfo. There is no guarantee that the server specified by the URL will beavailable or even still exists, or that the Web document that the serverwill return is the same as the one that was there when the client savedthe URL. What is actually returned is completely up to the server. Theadvantage of this arrangement is that what the server generally returnsis the most recent version of the Web document. With many Web documents,for example, those which contain weather reports or stock market prices,that is exactly what is desired. The disadvantage is that older versionsof the Web document are no longer accessible by the URL and may not beaccessible at all. It is further generally not clear what relationshipthe currently-accessible Web document has to the older versions. Onearea where this causes difficulty is documentation for software.Increasingly, the manufacturer of the software provides suchdocumentation by the World Wide Web; if the URL for the documentationspecifies the current version of the software, a user who has an olderversion may be left with no documentation at all. About the only way theuser of a Web browser 127 has to deal with this problem is to save alocal copy of the documentation in his Web client. In so doing, ofcourse, the user loses one of the most important advantages of the Web:the ability to save URLs instead of copies.

One attempt that has been made to deal with this problem is to establishWeb archiving services such as the one found at www.archive.org. Suchservices have all of the problems of general-purpose archives: they arehuge, but often do not have what the individual needs, and individualstypically have little or no input into what the archive saves.Additionally, vast amounts of the information which is accessible by aWeb client is not publicly available and therefore will not be archivedby an archiving service. This situation occurs when the Web server isbehind a firewall which separates the public Internet from a so-calledintranet which employs the Internet but is accessible only to Webclients known to the organization to which the intranet belongs. Theserver is thus accessible by Web clients that are also behind thefirewall or that are known to the firewall, but not to Web clients ingeneral. Such intranets are now one of the preferred ways ofcommunicating within organizations.

It is an object of the invention disclosed herein to provide techniquesfor overcoming the foregoing problems of accessing documents by means oftheir URLs.

BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The object of the invention is attained by means of a repository serverwhich fetches a document specified by a document URL, stores a copy ofthe document in the repository server, and provides a repository serverURL for the stored copy which can be used by a Web client to fetch thestored copy. The repository server relates the stored copy to thedocument URL for the document and to an identifier in the repositoryserver for the stored copy. The repository server may thus containstored copies for several versions of a document represented by aparticular document URL, with a unique repository server URL for eachstored copy. The repository further creates a fingerprint for the storedcopy. The fingerprint is a small encoded version of the stored copywhich preserves information that characterizes both the structure andthe content of the stored copy. Fingerprints are comparable to determinea degree of similarity of a pair of documents. Each stored copy'sfingerprint is associated with the stored copy in the repository and therepository further associates a list of other stored copies that aresimilar to a given stored copy with the given stored copy.

A user interface consisting of pages provided to a client of therepository server permits a user of the client to register a document byspecifying that operation and providing the document URL for thedocument. The repository server responds by making the stored copy,making the stored copy's repository URL, relating the stored copy to thedocument URL and the identifier for the stored copy, making the storedcopy's fingerprint, and making the stored copy's list of similar storedcopies.

The user interface further permits the user to fetch a document'scontent by specifying that operation and inputting the stored copy'srepository URL to the repository server. The repository server respondsto the repository URL by first using the document URL associated withthe stored copy to determine whether the document is accessible in thenetwork; if it is the client is redirected to the location specified bythe document URL; if the document is not accessible, the stored copyspecified by the repository URL is returned.

Additionally, the user interface permits the user to track stored copiesof a document. The user specifies a repository URL and the operation inthe client and the repository server responds by providing a list ofrepository URLs for stored copies that have the same document URL as thedocument URL related to the copy specified by the repository URL. In oneembodiment of this operation, the repository server also responds byproviding a list of repository URLs for stored copies that are similarto the stored copy specified by the repository URL. Selection of arepository URL from either list causes the repository server to respondby providing the stored copy specified by the repository URL to theclient.

In other aspects, the invention concerns techniques for making andcomparing fingerprints, including techniques for determining whether twostored copies are similar enough to warrant a comparison offingerprints, techniques for making the repository URL, and techniquesfor rewriting and using links in stored copies.

Other objects and advantages will be apparent to those skilled in thearts to which the invention pertains upon perusal of the followingDetailed Description and drawing, wherein:

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE SEVERAL VIEWS OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 shows a prior-art system for accessing information via theInternet;

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of the Web server of the invention;

FIG. 3 is the top-level Web page for the server's GUI;

FIG. 4 shows the Web page that appears if the page is not available onthe Web;

FIG. 5 shows the Web page that appears if the user requests versiontracking;

FIG. 6 is an entity-relationship drawing of registered document tables215;

FIG. 7 shows an HTML document and a tree made from the document;

FIG. 8 shows an algorithm for making fingerprints;

FIG. 9 shows an algorithm for determining the similarity of documents bycomparing the fingerprints from which they were made;

FIG. 10 shows an algorithm for filtering documents for dissimilarity;and

FIG. 11 shows flowcharts of the operation of registration code 207 andversion locator code 203.

Reference numbers in the drawing have three or more digits: the tworight-hand digits are reference numbers in the drawing indicated by theremaining digits. Thus, an item with the reference number 203 firstappears as item 203 in FIG. 2.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

The following Detailed Description will first present an overview of theweb server for multi-version documents, will then describe the userinterface, and will finally present details of various components of theweb server.

Overview of the Web Server for Multi-Version Documents: FIG. 2

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a Web server 201 for multi-version Webdocuments. In some of the following, server 201 is termed a repositoryserver. From the point of view of a Web client 125, Web server 201 is astandard Web server 111. When client 125 places a URL specifying Webserver 201 on Web 123, Web 123 delivers the URL to server 201 and server201 responds to the URL by returning a Web page to client 125. Like anyother Web server, server 201 has two main components, a processor 202which executes code in response to URLs specifying server 201's hostname115, and storage for the Web pages specified by the URLs or for theinformation required to make the Web pages. Here, storage 119 includesweb pages 225 for the user interface which Web client 125 uses tocontrol document server 201 and a database of registered Web documents213. A registered Web document is a Web document that has beenregistered in server 201, that is, server 201 has made a copy 223 of theWeb document as it was when it was registered in database 213 and hasmade a registered version URL 227 to which multi-version document server201 can respond by providing the version copy 223 referred to byregistered version URL 227 to the Web client 125 that was the source ofthe registered version URL. In the preferred embodiment, copy 223 hastwo parts: an original copy 222, which is the copy exactly as it wasreceived upon registration, and a rewritten copy 224, in which linkshave been rewritten. Why rewriting links is necessary and how it is donewill be discussed in detail later.

Fetching a Web Page with a Registered Version URL 227

Registered version URL 227 is a standard URL: it specifies a protocol105, a host name 107, here, the host name of server 201, and Web pagesource info 109. The Web page source info in registered version URL 227includes a parameter list which specifies a program 230 that is to beexecuted in processor 202 to provide the Web page and data to be used inthe execution of the program. Here the program is gc, which fetches thecontent of a registered Web page. gc is one of the programs in versionlocation code 203 executed by processor 202. When executing versionlocation code 203, server 201 is an embodiment of what is later termed aregistered document provider. gc takes two parameters: a registrationidentifier 231 which uniquely identifies the copy 223 of the registeredWeb page in database 213 and the original URL 233 of the fetched page.In a preferred embodiment, when multi-version document server 201receives registered version URL 227, it executes the gc program. gcfirst attempts to establish a connection between server 201 and theserver 111(i) specified by original URL 233; if that succeeds, gcredirects Web client to fetch the Web page using original URL 233. Ifthe attempt to establish a connection fails, gc uses registration ID 231to locate copy 223 in database 213 and that copy is returned to Webclient 125. When used as just described, multi-version document server201 guarantees that when Web client 125 provides a registered versionURL 227 to server 201, client 125 will receive the copy 223 of the Webpage specified by registration identifier 231 even when the documentspecified by original URL 233 is unavailable.

The information that version location code 203 needs to interpretregistered version URL 227 is contained in registration information 217in registered document tables 215. Registration information 217 relatescopy 223 to the original URL used to fetch the Web page from which copy223 was made and to the registration identifier which uniquelyidentifies that copy 223. Because the registration identifier uniquelyidentifies copy 223, database 213 can contain different versions of theWeb document identified by the original URL. Further, because theregistration identifier is included in the registered version URL 227,registered version URLs are unique for each version and can be used byclient 125 to fetch particular version copies 223 from server 201. In apreferred embodiment, this is done by inputting registration ID 231 fromURL, 227 into the user interface provided by server 201; in otherversions, it may be done by providing URL 227 to the user interface andthen specifying whether server 201 is to return the version currentlyspecified by original URL 233 or the copy specified by registrationidentifier 231. As will be explained in more detail later, for a givencopy 223(i), the user may also specify whether he or she wants originalcopy 222(i) or rewritten copy 224(i).

Registering a Web Page in Server 201

A user of a Web client registers a Web page in server 201 by inputtingthe URL of the Web page to be registered to a Web page of user interfaceweb pages 225. In response to the input from that Web page, server 201executes registration code 207 which fetches the document currentlyspecified by the URL, generates a registration ID for it, creates anentry in registration information 217 for the registration ID whichcontains the original URL, the registration ID, and the location of acopy of the document in database 213, and then creates a URL 227 forcopy 223 and returns it to the user, who can then use it as describedabove. When executing registration code 207, server 201 is an embodimentof what is later termed a document registrar.

Automated Registration of Web Pages

A preferred embodiment of server 201 will do automated registration ofWeb pages. In the preferred embodiment, an administrator of server 201may specify a range of IP addresses of interest. Server 201 will executeautomatic registration code 212 which fetches Web contents at thoseaddresses and registers them as described above in server 201.Variations on automatic registration include:

-   -   1. Automatic registration of links: Starting from a registered        URL, parse all the reference links in the document identified by        the URL, and register those URL links automatically. The system        can provide the option to limit registration of URLs only to        those that come from the same website (domain).    -   2. Recursive automatic registration of links: Starting from a        registered URL, recursively follow all of the URLs links in the        document identified by the URL as long as they come from the        same website (domain). Note that this option will be        time-consuming for certain websites.    -   3. Automatic scheduled registration: setting up a schedule to        register certain URLs of which content versions and changes are        both frequent/periodic and important. For example, an URL        pointing to an internal daily TODO list can be auto-registered        using a daily schedule.

Of course, automatic registration of links and recursive automaticregistration of links may be combined with other forms of automaticregistration. Other embodiments of the invention may also provide a userinterface which permits a user of server 201 to set up automaticregistration of URLs that are of personal interest to the user from Webclient 125. By using the document fingerprinting and fingerprintcomparison techniques described below, server 201 in another embodimentcan limit automatic registration of documents to those which aresubstantially different from already registered documents.

Using Server 201 to Produce a Version History of Copies 223

Registration information 217 can also be used to provide a versionhistory of the version copies 223 that were fetched using a particularoriginal URL. Because registration information relates the original URLto the registration ID, processor 202 can query registration information217 using a registration ID and receive a list of the registrationidentifiers for copies 223 of versions of the document that have thesame original URL as the URL in for the copy 223 identified by theregistration ID. Server 201 uses the registration IDs and the originalURL to construct a list of URLs 227 for the copies 223 specified by theregistration IDs. The list is returned as links in a Web page to Webclient 125 and the user can click on a link to select a specificversion. When server 210 receives the URL 227 corresponding to theselected link, it uses the URL to return the copy 223 specified by theURL 227 to Web client 125. In other embodiments, server 201 may providea version history in response to the input of an original URL or of aregistered version URL 227. In the former case, the original URL wouldbe used to make the query; in the latter case, original URL 233 from theregistered version URL 227 would be used to make the query.

URL Search

A server 201 may have many thousands of registered documents, each withits own copy 223 and registered version URL 227. In many embodiments, itwill therefore be useful to provide a URL search capability. In URLsearch, the user at Web client 125 inputs a search string to a Web page225 provided by server 201 and server 201 searches registrationinformation 217 for original URLs which contain the search string inputby the user. Wildcard characters may of course be used in the searchstrings. Server 201 can also offer case sensitive and insensitive searchand sorting based on URLs or registration time. As output from the URLsearch operation, server 201 returns a Web page with a list of linkscontaining matching URLs 227 and for each matching URL, its registrationID 231 and registration time.

It should be pointed out here that while server 201 registers URLs, thetechniques just described can be used with any kind of locator oridentifier that can be used to fetch a data item. For this reason, thegeneric term document locator is sometimes used in the following as ageneric term for a URL of any other kind of locator or identifier thatcan be used to fetch a data item. What is required for registration isthe following:

-   -   Data structures available to server 201 that relate three things        to each other:        -   a copy of the data item being registered that is accessible            to server 201;        -   the document locator used to fetch the original of the data            item at the time of registration; and        -   a registration identifier for the copy that uniquely            identifies the copy that is accessible to server 201.    -   A document locator for the copy to which server 201 responds by        fetching the copy.

Operations Performed on Copies 223

Many operations can be performed on version copies 223 that furtherincrease the usefulness of server 201. Among these are relative linkrewriting, fingerprinting copies 223, comparing copies 223 on the basisof their fingerprints, and including indexes to the contents of thecopies 223 in database 213.

Link Rewriting

Web pages are defined using HTML (hypertext markup language). In HTML, alink to another Web page can be written either as an absolute link,which specifies a complete URL, including protocol 105, hostname 107,and Web page source info 109, or a relative link, which consists of Webpage source info 109 which is appended to the URL used by the user tofetch the Web page that contains the relative link. Because the URLformed using the relative link always has the protocol and host namefrom the URL used to fetch the Web page containing the relative link,relative links are used to refer to other Web pages that are containedin the same host as the Web page that contains the relative link.

When a URL is registered in server 201 and a copy of the Web pagespecified by the URL is added to version copies 223, copy 223 is ofcourse no longer in the Web server for the host for which the originalof copy 223 was written and relative links in copy 223 will be completedfrom the URL used to fetch copy 223, which is a URL that specifiesserver 201. To deal with this problem, when server 201 fetches the Webpage referred to by a URL which is being registered and adds a copy ofthe Web page to version copies 223, it makes two copies—one of these,original copy 222 is an exact copy of the original as fetched atregistration time, the other, rewritten copy 224, is a copy in which allof the relative links in version copy 223 have been rewritten so thatwhen the user clicks on a relative link, server 201 provides an absoluteURL that like registered version URL 227 employs the gc program toredirect client 125 to the server 111(i) specified by an URL made fromthe hostname for the host from which the fetched Web page was obtained.The information server 201 needs to do this is obtained from the URLbeing registered. The preferred embodiment also rewrites the URLs formost absolute links in the same fashion, with the gc program redirectingclient 125 to the server 111(i) specified in the original absolute link

Fingerprinting Version Copies 223

A fingerprint of a document is a value that is much smaller than thedocument and is produced from the document in such a fashion that thefingerprints of two documents can be compared to determine how similarthe documents are to each other. Fingerprints differ from digests ofdocuments produced by hash functions in that a comparison of two digestscan only indicate whether the documents from which the digests wereproduced are identical. Fingerprint comparisons, on the other hand,indicate a degree of similarity of the documents being compared.Document server 201 employs fingerprinting code 209 to make afingerprint of each registered document when the document is registeredand the fingerprints are stored in fingerprint information 219. Thefingerprinting algorithm used in a preferred embodiment will beexplained in detail later.

Comparing Version Copies 223

Because each version copy 223 in server 201 has a fingerprint, thesimilarity between any two version copies 223(i) and (j) can bedetermined by comparing the fingerprint for version copy 223(i) with thefingerprint for version copy 223(j). The comparison is done by documentcomparison code 211. In a preferred embodiment, server 201 maintains foreach version copy 223 a list of the results of fingerprint comparisonsbetween the particular version copy 223 and version copies 223 whoseoriginal URLs have the same host name 107 as the particular versioncopy.

When the user of Web client 125 requests a version history for a givenversion copy 223, server 201 returns not only a list of links for theversion copies 223 that have the same original URL 233 as the oneassociated with the registration ID 231 that the user provides as inputto client 125, but also a list of links to version copies 223 thatappear on the list of the results of the fingerprint comparisons.Included with the link is a value for the degree of similarity of theversion copy specified by the link to the given version copy 223. Inother embodiments, a user may be able to obtain a list of similarversion copies independently of the version history operation simply byproviding a registration ID for a document or selecting a link to thedocument from a list in a user interface Web page 225. Being able toshow the degree of similarity between two version copies 223 has twoimportant advantages:

-   -   when a version history of versions referred to by a given        original URL is made, the degree of similarity of the versions        permits the user to make some surmises about the relationship        between the versions; and    -   Where the same or very similar content has been associated with        two different original URLs from the same Web site, the degree        of similarity between the copies 223 for the different original        URLs reveals that the content associated with the original URLs        is substantially the same.

Indexing Version Copies 223

The techniques described in U.S. Ser. No. 10/810,756, Hu, et al., Adatabase management system with persistent, user-accessible bitmapvalues, filed Mar. 26, 2004, may be employed to make bitmap indexes ofthe contents of version copies 223 in database 213. The indexes could bemade for all of the version copies 223 or separate indexes could be madefor the version copies 223 associated with a given original URL.

Examples of Ways in Which Server 201 May Be Used

Server 201 has the following characteristics:

-   -   it can provide a version copy 223 of a Web document when the Web        site from which the document comes is unavailable.    -   Registration makes a version copy 223 of the version of the Web        document that is current available at the Web site from which        the document comes and relates the copy and the original URL to        a version number, so that versions of the Web document can be        tracked.    -   Registration may be automatic.    -   Original URLs of version copies 223 may be searched.    -   Version copies 223 are related to fingerprints 819 that permit        comparison of the version copies.

Uses of server 201 which take advantage of these characteristics will beexplained in the following.

Server 201 as a Robust Source for Shared Information

A business may have an intranet with a number of internal Web sites,including some personal Web pages located on PCs. A Web document on oneof these sites is of course available only when the site is operating. Aserver 201 implemented in a high availability processor and databasesystem can solve this problem. Web documents from the internal Web sitesthat need to be generally available at all times can be automaticallyregistered in server 201. Workers for the business can use theregistered version URL 227 for the document to fetch it. As describedabove, server 201 will respond to the registered version URL by firstattempting to use the document's original URL 233 to redirect Web client125 to the document's home Web site and if that fails, will provide theversion copy 223 referred to by URL 227's registration ID 231. Server201 used in this fashion may be combined with a search engine that hasbeen modified to search the business's Intranet. When the search engineindexes a Web document, the document is also registered with server 201,and the list of URLs returned by the search engine is a list of URLs 227for registered copies 223 of the Web documents.

Server 201 as a Source of Versions of a Web Document

Presently, if the business wishes to make historical versions of a Webdocument available through a single URL, the Web page produced inresponse to the single URL must be a list of the historical versions,and this list must be updated each time a new version becomes available.With server 201, the business need only register each new version inserver 201; to see the available version copies 223 and retrieve any ofthem, a user need only use the version tracking operation with theregistered version URL 227 for one of the versions.

Server 201 as a Storage Place for a Version of a Web Document That aUser Wishes to Keep and Make Available to Others

Presently, if someone finds a version of a Web document that iscurrently of interest to himself and others, those interested receive aURL for the Web document that may later not function at all or retrievea version of the document that is different from the one that iscurrently of interest. This situation can be avoided by registering theversion of the Web document that is of interest and providing itsregistered version URL 227 to those who are interested in the registeredversion.

Details of the User Interface in a Preferred Embodiment: FIGS. 3-5

FIG. 3 shows the first user interface Web page 225 which server 201returns to a user who wishes to use server 201 to register a Web page,fetch the Web page, or track the versions of a particular Web page thatare stored in server 201. At 303 is a writable field into which a usermay enter a URL to be registered, a registered version URL 227, or aregistration ID number 231 to have server 201 fetch the originaldocument or a copy 223 or track the versions of the document in server201. When the URL or registration ID number has been input, the userclicks on one of the buttons under field 303 to specify the operation.As can be seen from the labels, when the user clicks on button 305,server 201 registers the URL in field 303. Upon registering the URL,server 301 returns a Web page with the contents shown at 315; as seenthere, the returned page indicates the URL 317 that has been registeredand the registered version URL 227 resulting from the registration. Ifthe URL 317 has already been registered, message 315 so indicates.

When field 303 contains a URL 227 or a registration ID 231, what happensdepends on which of buttons 307-313 the user clicks on. Referencenumbers in parentheses in the following refer to flowchart portion 1138in FIG. 11.

-   -   If the user clicks on get contents button 307 (1139, 1141,        1143), server 201 attempts to establish a connection to the        server 111(i) specified by the document's original URL and        redirect Web client 125 to that server. If the attempt fails,        server 201 fetches the version copy 223 specified by the URL 227        or registration ID 231 and provides it to client 125. The Web        page that appears when server 301 is able to redirect client 125        is simply the version that is currently available on server        111(i); if the redirection fails and server 301 fetches a        version copy 223(i), what appears is Web page 401, shown in        FIG. 4. Web page 401 is produced from rewritten copy 224 and        includes highlighted legend 403 stating that links have been        rewritten and indicating the date and time at which copy 223(i)        was registered.    -   If the user clicks on Track it please button 309, server 301        produces a Web page 501 (FIG. 5) which contains a list 503 of        versions of copy 223 specified by the URL 227 or registration ID        231 and a list 505 of copies 223 that are similar to the copy        specified by URL 227. In each list entry, the registration id of        the copy 223 and the time the copy 223 was registered is        specified; in the list of copies that are similar, each entry        further contains a value for the degree of similarity at 507. At        509, finally, the page indicates when the tracking was done.        Clicking on a list entry results in the return of the rewritten        copy 224 of version copy 223 represented by the entry.    -   If the user clicks on Get that version button 311 (1139, 1141,        1145, 1147), what is returned is rewritten copy 224 of the        version copy 223 specified by the URL 227 or registration ID        231. The display is the same as that shown in FIG. 4.    -   If the user clicks on Get it in original button 313 (1139, 1141,        1145, 1147), what is returned is original copy 222 of the        version copy 223 specified by the URL 227 or registration ID        231.

Many other versions of this interface are of course possible. In someapplications, not all of the operations will be required. For example,if server 201 is only intended to make sure that a version of a Webdocument is always available and documents are registered automaticallyor only by system managers, only a get contents operation may be needed.Similarly, if the only use of server 201 is to track versions and theversions are registered automatically or only by system managers, onlythe tracking operation may be needed In many embodiments, only systemmanagers will he interested in original copy 224, so the user will onlysee rewritten copy 224. In other embodiments, the interface may providebuttons for other operations, for example, a document comparisonoperation that is independent of the version tracking operation or a URLsearch operation.

Details of Registered Document Tables 215

In a preferred embodiment, the information relating a registration ID231 to the original URL 233 of a Web page as well as the informationrequired for fingerprinting and document comparison is contained inregistered document tables 215 in a relational database system. FIG. 6is an entity-relationship diagram of tables 215 and the relationshipsbetween them. Dotted-line boxes in FIG. 6 indicate the relationshipbetween the tables and the kinds of information shown in FIG. 2.

Beginning with registration information 217, this information iscontained in two tables: PAGE_CACHE table 601 and REGISTERED_URL table607. REGISTERED URL table 607 relates registration IDs 231 to originalURLs 233. There is a row in table 607 for each registered version copy223. The fields in the row which are relevant to the present discussionare the REG_URL field 233, which contains the original URL 233 for theversion copy 223, the REG_ID field, which contains the registration ID231 for the version copy 223 and is the unique key for the row, and theREGISTER_TIME field, which contains a date stamp indicating the date andtime at which version copy 223 was registered.

PAGE_CACHE table 601 relates registration IDs 231 to version copies 223.There is a row in table 601 for each registered version copy 223, andthus a row in table 601 for each row in REGISTERED_URL table 607. Thefields in the row that are relevant to the present context are theREG_ID field, which contains the registration ID 231 for the versioncopy and is the unique key for the row, CONTENT_ENCODING, CONTENT_TYPE,and LAST_MODIFIED, which all contain information about the version copy223, and the two versions of version copy 223: rewritten version 224 inthe FULL_CONTENT field and original version 222 in the ORIG_CONTENTfield. The occurrence of REG_ID in both the PAGE_CACHE andREGISTERED_URL tables further relates original URLs to version copies223.

Fingerprint information 219 is contained in FINGER_PRINT table 609.There is a row in table 609 for each registration ID 231, andconsequently for each version copy 223. The relevant fields in the roware the REG_ID field, which contains the registration ID 231 for theversion copy 233 and is the unique key for the row, the FINGER_PRINTfield, which contains the fingerprint made from original version 222 ofthe version copy, and the SIMILAR_PAGES field, which contains a list ofversion copies 223 that come from the same Web site as the version copy223 identified by the value of the REG_ID field and have a substantialsimilarity to the version copy identified by the value of the REG_IDfield. The list includes for each version copy the version copy'sregistration ID and a value indicating the degree of similarity betweenthat version copy and the version copy identified by the value of therow's REG_ID field. The LAST_FUZZY_MATCH_TIME field contains a time-datestamp that indicates the last time that the list in the SIMILAR_PAGESfield was updated.

Link information 221 is contained in REFERENCED_LINK table 617 andALL_LINK table 613. Each different link that is found in version copies223 is identified by a unique link ID value. There is a row for each ofthe links in ALL_LINK table 613. The row for a link relates the link ID(in the LINK_ID field) to an absolute URL that corresponds to the URLspecified by the absolute or relative link in the original Web page (inthe LINK_URL field). The value of the LINK_ID field is the unique keyfor the row. REFERENCED_LINK table 617 relates registration IDs to thelink IDs for the links in the version copy 223 specified by theregistration ID. For each registration ID, there is a row for each linkin the version copy 223 specified by the registration ID. The REG_IDfield contains the registration ID 231 for the version copy and the LINKID field contains the link ID for one of the links in the REG_ID field.A query on REFERENCED_LINK table 617 by a registration ID will return alist of the link IDs for the links in the version copy 223 identified bythe registration ID, and the link IDs can then be used in the ALL_LINKtable to obtain the URLs for the links. In a preferred embodiment, linkinformation 221 is used to make a threshold determination of whether twoversion copies 233 are similar enough to warrant comparing theirfingerprints.

Details of the Operations of Web Server 201.

When the tables of FIG. 6 are studied in conjunction with the graphicaluser interface of FIGS. 3-5 and the flowcharts of FIG. 11, it isimmediately apparent how the operations of registering a URL, gettingthe contents of a registered URL, tracking versions, getting therewritten version 224 of a copy 223, and getting the original version222 of the copy 223 are performed. Numbers in parentheses in thefollowing are from the flowchart of FIG. 11.

Registration: (1101)

When an original URL is entered in field 303 of entry user interfacepage 301 (1105) and the user clicks on Register URL button 305,registration code 207 obtains a unique registration ID 231 for theregistration (1107), makes a row in PAGE CACHE table 601 in which theREG_ID field's value is registration ID 231, and then saves a copy 222of the content referred to by the original URL in the row's ORIG_CONTENTfield (1109). Registration code 207 further provides the relevant valuesfrom copy 222 for the CONTENT_ENCODING and CONTENT_TYPE fields and useslink rewriting code 205 to rewrite the links in copy 222 to produce copy224, which is stored in the row's FULL_CONTENT field. Link rewritingcode 205 also makes rows for the links as needed in ALL_LINK table 613and REFERENCED_LINK table 617. Then the registration code makes a newrow for the new registration identifier and the original URL inREGISTERED_URL table 607 (1111) and time stamps the new entry. Then athe registered version URL 227 for the registered version of thedocument is created (1113) and is returned (1115). Depending on theembodiment, registration code 207 may invoke fingerprinting code 209fingerprinting of original version 222 of the new version copy 223 atregistration time or fingerprinting may be done later. When it is done,a row is made in FINGER_PRINT table 609 for the new version copy 223 andthe fingerprint. Since comparison of the fingerprint for the new versioncopy 223 with the fingerprints for all of the other version copies 223from the same Web site requires considerable resources, making the listin SIMILAR_PAGES will typically be done later. Automatic registrationworks substantially as just described, except that the original URLs areprovided by the Web crawler.

Getting Contents (1117)

When a user inputs a registered version URL 227 or a registration ID 231to field 303 and clicks on Get contents button 307 (1121), server 201executes version location code 203. The input registration ID 231 or theregistration ID 231 from the input registered version URL 227 is used tolocate the row for the registration ID 231 in REGISTERED_URL table 607(1123) and server 201 uses the original URL 233 in the REG_URL field totry to establish a connection with the server specified by original URL233 (1125). If server 201 succeeds (1127, branch 1133), it redirects Webclient 125 to that server (1135); otherwise (1127, branch 1129), server201 fetches rewritten copy 224 of the version copy identified by theregistration ID from the registration ID's row in PAGE_CACHE 601 (1131).The date-time output in indication 403 that accompanies rewritten copy224 is obtained from the REGISTER_TIME field in the registration ID'srow in REGISTERED_URL table 607.

Tracking Registered Versions of a Web Document Having a ParticularOriginal URL

When a user inputs a registered version URL 227 or a registration ID 231to field 303 and clicks on Track it please button 309, server 201 alsoexecutes code that is part of version location code 203. Execution ofthis code causes server 201 to use the original URL associated with theregistration ID in registered version URL 227 or in REGISTERED_URL table607 to locate all of the rows in REGISTERED_URL table 607 whose REG_URLfield 233 has a value which is the same as that of the original URL.These rows of course correspond to the versions of Web documents storedin server 201 that correspond to the original URL. The code then causesserver 201 to use these rows to produce a registered version URL 227 foreach of the rows and to use the registered version URLs 227 to producelist of versions 503 in Web page 501.

Trucking Registered Versions of Web Documents That are Similar to aGiven Registered Version

In a preferred embodiment, Web page 501 also includes list 505 ofregistered Web documents 223 that are similar to the registered Webdocument 223 specified by registered version URL 227 or registration ID231. In a preferred embodiment, version location code 203 causes server201 to make list 505 from the list of registration IDs and similarityvalues in the field SIMILAR PAGES in the row for the registration ID 231in the table FINGER PRINT 609.

Retrieving a Particular Version Copy 223 of a Web Document

When a user inputs a registered version URL 227 or a registration ID 231to field 303 and clicks on Get that version button 311, version locationcode 203 causes server 201 to retrieve rewritten copy 224 from the fieldFULL_CONTENT in the row of PAGE_CACHE table 601 specified by the inputregistration ID 231 or the registration ID 231 from the input URL 227.When the user does the same and clicks on Get it in original button 313,version location code 203 causes server 201 to retrieve original copy222 from the field ORIG_CONTENT in that row.

Details of Link Rewriting

As described above, when server 201 registers a Web document, server 201rewrites the relative links in the Web document to produce rewrittencopy 224 of the Web document. The code that server 201 executes to dothe rewriting is link rewriting code 205, which employs the followingmethod to rewrite each URL that it encounters in the Web document beingregistered:

URL rewriteUrl(URL baseURL, URL url).

{

-   -   1. First, construct an absoluteURL based on baseURL and url.        Note that if url is not a relative URL, then absoluteURL will be        equal to url.    -   2. Second, if the url is from HTML form action, for example        <form action=“ . . . ”>, then return absoluteURL.    -   3. Otherwise, construct        http://wru-server-host-and-path?gc=1&url=absoluteURL and return        it. Note that what is constructed here is a special form of        registered version URL 227 that includes original URL 233 but        does not include registration ID 231.        }

Server 201 then writes this special form of URL 227 into rewritten copy224 in place of the URL in the original link. When a user is viewingrewritten copy 224 and clicks on a link with a rewritten URL, server 201receives the special form of registered version URL 227 and responds asdescribed above for the standard registered version URL 227: itredirects Web client 125 to the Web document specified by the absoluteURL contained in the special URL 227. In other embodiments, if that Webdocument is unavailable and there is a stored copy corresponding to theURL in server 201, server 201 may fetch the copy, and may in some casesfetch the copy whose registration date makes it most relevant to thecopy that contains the link. Indeed, in some embodiments, server 201 mayfirst attempt to fetch a relevant stored copy instead of fetching thecurrent version. URLs in the HTML form action construct <formaction=“url”> are not rewritten using the special form of URL 227because they are usually entry points to some processing logic that isavailable only in the Web server that was the source of the originaldocument. An example is <form action=“login.jsp”>. To deal with this,the URLs in HTML form action are simply rewritten as absolute URLs forthe source server.

Rewriting code 205 further causes server 201 to add a row to ALL_LINKtable 613 whenever it encounters or makes an absolute URL that is notalready in table 613 and to add a row in REFERENCED_LINK table 617 forversion copy 223 to which rewritten copy 224 belongs whenever itencounters or makes an absolute URL for which there is not a row intable 617 for version copy 223's registration ID and the absolute URL'slink ID in ALL_LINK table 613.

Details of Fingerprinting

Overview

The whole flow for finding registered URLs for similar version copies223 is as follows:

-   -   Generate a fingerprint using the algorithm explained below for        the copy 223 represented by a given registered version URL 227.    -   Place rows for the absolute links produced by the link rewriting        done to produce rewritten version 224 as required in ALL_LINK        table 613 and REFERENCED_LINK table 617.    -   Given an original URL 233 for a given copy 223, get a list of        the registration IDs 231 and fingerprints for all other copies        223 whose original URLs 233 have the same host name 107 and port        as the host name and port for the given copy's original URL.    -   Filter the list using formal criteria to quickly eliminate        copies 223 which have no meaningful similarity to the given copy        223. In the preferred embodiment, this is done using information        in REFERENCED_LINK table 617.    -   For the copies 223 that pass the filtering, apply the fuzzy        matching algorithm defined below to the fingerprints.    -   Make a list of the registration IDs 231 and degrees of        similarity for the copies 223 that bear a reasonable degree of        similarity to the given copy 223.

The Fingerprinting Algorithm: FIGS. 7 and 8

This section describes the technique used in a preferred embodiment toproduce a fingerprint from an HTML document that can be compared withanother fingerprint produced using the same technique to determine adegree of similarity between the HTML documents for which thefingerprints were made. The fingerprints can be compared to determine adegree of similarity because they contain reduced-size representationsof all of the structural information contained in the HTML documentalong with reduced-size representations of the content of the HTMLdocument. The technique described here for fingerprinting HTML documentscan be adapted for use in any document representation in which therepresentation clearly separates the structural information about thedocument from the document's content.

As shown at 707 in FIG. 7, a HTML document can be viewed as a tree. Inthe tree, there are two kinds of nodes: nodes 709 representing thestructural information in the HTML document and nodes 711 containing theactual content of the HTML document. The content nodes 711 generallycontain text. The tree shown at 701 is made from the simple HTMLdocument shown at 701. As shown there at 703, the structural informationis provided by HTML tags. Each tag is enclosed in angle brackets, whilecontent is not, as shown at 705. Tags generally come in pairs, forexample, <html>, </html>, with the first tag of the pair indicating thebeginning of the portion of the HTML document to which the tag appliesand the second tag indicating the end. A pair of tags may have othertags or pairs of tags nested in it. In tree 707, each tag node 709contains the corresponding tag from document 701 and each text node 711contains the corresponding text.

If fingerprints are to be useful for determining the similarity of HTMLdocuments, a fingerprint must capture the structure of the document asdefined by its HTML tags as well as its text or other content but mustalso be substantially smaller than the HTML document they are made from.In the technique used in the preferred embodiment, the size of the tagsis reduced by encoding them and replacing the tags in the HTML documentwith their encoded versions. To reduce the size of the content in thefingerprint while retaining comparability of the content, severaltechniques are available:

-   -   1. Use a message digest algorithm like MD5 that generates a        message digest of a fixed size from a message;    -   2. Hash the content using a standard hashing technique like the        Secure Hash Standard;    -   3. Replace the text with a part thereof and perhaps also the        length of the total text.

The first two techniques are well known. For details on MD5, seehttp://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1321.html; for details on the Secure HashStandard, see http://www.itl.nist.gov/fipspubs/fip180-1.htm. Thepreferred embodiment employs the third choice. For example, we canchoose to use the first (or middle, or last) word plus the text length.We may also use the first (or middle, or last) non-blank character plusthe text length. The third choice produces shorter representations ofthe text than the first two choices and requires less computation; itsdisadvantage is that it is less likely to detect changes in the textthan the techniques that employ hash codes or digests.

In the preferred embodiment, the text is replaced by a characterizationof the text made up of the text's first two non-blank lower casecharacters plus the text length info. Other embodiments may choose othercharacters, with the choice typically depending on the language. Thelength info is modularized by 58 and 64 is then added to the results ofthe modularization. The modularization and the addition of 64 serve tomake the length information representable by human-readable ASCIIcharacters. Note that 64 is the ASCII code for ‘@’ and 121 is the ASCIIcode for ‘y.’ These two numbers, 64 and 58, are chosen heuristically andshould be tunable system parameters. Other embodiments may use MD5 orsome other hash standard for making the characterization of the text.

FIG. 8 shows the algorithm 805 and the fingerprint 819 resulting fromthe application of the algorithm to HTML document 701. At 801 are shownthe encodings of the HTML tags that are employed in document 701. Eachrow of table 801 has the encodings for a start tag and its correspondingend tag. Thus, row 803 gives the encodings for <HTML> and </HTML>.

At 805 is shown the pseudocode for the fingerprinting algorithm employedin the preferred embodiment. At the top level, the algorithm has threeparts: initialization 807, fingerprint production loop 809, and thereturn of the fingerprint at 817. Initialization 807 initializes thefingerprint variable to a null string. Loop 809 runs until the wholeHTML document has been read and processed. There are three differentkinds of nodes in tree 707: those for HTML start tags, those for HTMLend tags, and those that contain content. IF statement 811 handles HTMLstart tags: it simply finds the encoded form corresponding to the starttag and places the encoded form in the fingerprint; IF statement 813does the same with HTML end tags. Content nodes 711 are handled by IFstatement 815, which works as described above to add the first twonon-blank lower-case characters of the text and then a third characterwhose value is determined by the length of the text to the fingerprint.

Fingerprint 819 in FIG. 8 has been generated using the above algorithmfrom HTML document 701. The encoded <HTML> start tag is shown at 821,the encoded <HTML> end tag is shown at 825, and the string used tocharacterize the text Hello! is shown at 823. In terms of the tree ofFIG. 707, the algorithm produces fingerprint 819 by processing node709(b) and adding the result of the processing to fingerprint 819, andso on for node 709(d), node 709(t), node 711(a), node 709(g), node709(h), node 711(b), node 709(i), node 709(e), and node 709(c).

Calculating Similarities of HTML Documents Using Fingerprints: FIG. 9

Intuitively, given two character-string fingerprints produced as justdescribed from two HTML documents, the greater the total number ofcharacters in the substrings the fingerprints have in common, thegreater the degree of similarity of the HTML documents from which thetwo fingerprints were produced.

FIG. 9 is pseudocode for an algorithm 901 that is based on the aboveintuition. The details of the algorithm presented below depend on therepresentations of the HTML start tags used in the fingerprints, but thealgorithm can easily be adapted to fingerprints made from other documentrepresentations. The algorithm takes as arguments a pair of fingerprintsfp1 and fp2, with fp1 being no longer than fp2. The algorithm startswith the shorter fingerprint, termed the source fingerprint, locates thefirst ‘<’ which is a delimiter of mapped HTML tags in the sourcefingerprint, finds the longest common substring that starts from theposition located, then moves to the next ‘<’ after the common substringand repeats this process. The algorithm uses two functions that need tobe understood: locate_substring( ) and longestSubstr( ).

locate_SubString( ) locates the next matching substring. The functiontakes three parameters. The first one is the source fingerprint. Thesecond one is the substring that is to be found in the sourcefingerprint. The third parameter defines the starting position in thesource string for the match. For example, locateSubString (“abcabc”,“ab”, 2) will return 4. If no match is found, locateSubString willreturn 0.

longestSubStr (fp1, fp2, delimPos) returns the longest possiblesubstring which starts from position delimPos in fp1, and is also asubstring in fp2. For example, longestSubStr(“xyABCGGD1234”,“88890ABCGGABZGGD1234”, 3) will return “ABCGG”.

Continuing in more detail, at 903, an initialization step initializestwo variables which mark positions in the source string, lastPos, whichmarks the current position in the source fingerprint from which matchingis to begin, and delimPos, which marks the position of a current “<”delimiter character in the source fingerprint. lastPos is initialized to1 and delimPos to the first “<” in the source fingerprint. Thesimilarity between the fingerprints is initialized to 0. The processingof the two fingerprints is done in do while loop 905, which runs untilno further left angle brackets “<” can be found in the sourcefingerprint. In the loop body, the first thing that is done is to lookfor the longest substring match between the part of fp1 and beginning atthe current “<” character and all of fp2 (906); if the length of thematch is greater than or equal to 6 characters, the length of the matchis added to the variable similarity. The length of the current match orat least 1 is added to lastPos, and starting at lastPos, the next “<”character is found and loop 905 is repeated. When the loop terminates,the similarity of the documents is computed by dividing the currentvalue of the variable similarity by the length of the sourcefingerprint.

Note that the number “6” in IF statement 906 is heuristically chosen. Itshould be part of the tunable system parameters. The purpose of thisparameter is to put a lower bound on the size of the common substringfound. Intuitively, if only a match of a very short substring is found,for example “<v” which is “<p>” in HTML, the fact that such a match isfound says little about the similarity of the HTML documents from whichthe fingerprints were made. As a possible improvement to the abovealgorithm, once a common substring has been located, it can be removedfrom fp2 so that that part of fp2 will not be further tested formatches. This is a bit more time consuming though.

Limiting the Number of Fingerprint Comparisons to be Made: FIG. 10

Since there is a fingerprint for every version copy 223 in server 201,the fingerprint 819 for any version copy can be compared with that forany other version copy 223. In most cases, of course, the comparisonwill show no similarity; finding that out from the fingerprints,however, requires the performance of algorithm 901, whose time ofexecution is slower for dissimilar fingerprints than for similar ones.What is needed here is a way of filtering document pairs prior to makinga fingerprint comparison so that the fingerprint comparison is made onlywith documents that have a reasonable likelihood of being similar.

In a preferred embodiment, two separate techniques are used to filterdocument pairs. One technique is used in making the SIMILAR_PAGES listin a given page's row in FINGER_PRINT table 609. The pages on the listare limited to pages from the same Web site as the given page. Anothertechnique is to check for dissimilarity of the links contained in theversion copies 223 that are to be compared for similarity. Thistechnique is based on the following observations:

-   -   Similar HTML documents tend to have similar numbers of links and        the links tend to point to the same Web sites in both documents.    -   The links in an HTML document change at a rate which is much        slower than the rate at which the HTML document's content or        tags change.

From the foregoing, if it can be determined for a pair of version copies223 that are being compared by document server 201 either that the twodocuments in the pair have greatly differing numbers of links or thatthe links do not point to the same Web sites in the two documents of thepair, it is clear that the copies 223 of the pair are not similar, andthere is no need to compare their fingerprints. The two filteringtechniques can of course be combined. It will of course be immediatelyapparent that the observations concerning links in HTML documents applyequally to links in any other document representation and that thefiltering techniques can be used with any kind of document that containslinks.

Server 201 maintains the information about links that it needs to filteron the basis of link dissimilarity in REFERENCED_LINK table 617. All theinformation that is needed for the filtering operation can be obtainedby querying REFERENCED_LINK table 617 with the registration IDs of thecopies 223 that are being compared. The query for each copy 223 of thepair determines the number of links in for each version copy 223 in apair. The query further returns a list of the LINK_ID values for thelinks in the version copy 223 and these values can be compared. If thesame LINK_ID value appears on both lists, both version copies 223 have alink to the same URL.

The algorithm for filtering on the basis of link dissimilarity is shownin FIG. 10. As would be expected from the foregoing discussion, thealgorithm is carried out in two steps. The first step 1001 determineshow many links each version copy of the pair contains and filters onthat basis. linkNum1 contains the number of links in the first copy 223in the pair and linkNum2 contains the number of links in the second copy223 in the pair. Two tests 1003 and 1005 are applied and the pair ofcopies 223 is filtered out unless it passes one of them. Test 1003simply lets pairs of copies 223 pass where the combined number of linksis no greater than 7. Test 1005 divides the difference between thenumber of links in the two documents by the sum of the number of links+2 in the two documents and lets the pair pass if the result of thedivision is less than ⅓. Again, the numbers 7, 2 and 0.3333, used arechosen heuristically. They could be part of the system's tunableconfiguration parameters. The first condition says that if togetherthese two URLs contain just a few reference links, the filter should letit pass. The second condition says that if the numbers of referencelinks of these two URLs differ within a predefined range, the filtershould let it pass.

Second step 1007 determines the number of links that the two pages havein common. totalLinksNum is the number of links in one of the copies 223of the pair; sameLinksNum is the number of identical URLs for whichthere are links in both of the copies 223. The condition for passing isshown at 1015. Again, the numbers used in the test are heuristicallychosen and should be tunable system configuration parameters. Thecondition says that if the number of the same links is reasonably largecompared to the total number of reference links, the filter should letthe pair of copies 223 pass. When a pair of copies passes both test 1001and test 1007, server 201 will compare the fingerprints for the pair.

Conclusion

The foregoing Detailed Description has described to those skilled in therelevant technologies how to make and use the repository server of theinvention and has further described the best mode presently known to theinventor of implementing his repository server. It will be immediatelyapparent to those skilled in the relevant technologies that manyimplementations of the invention are possible other than the preferredembodiment described herein. For example, the preferred embodimentoperates in the environment provided by the Internet and the httpprotocol and consequently, many details of the preferred embodiment aredetermined by that environment. The principles of the invention can,however, be employed in any situation where there is a need to ensurethat copies of documents normally accessible via a network areaccessible when they are not available via the network or when differentversions are needed from those presently accessible via the network.

In the preferred embodiment, the necessary relationships between thecopies stored in the repository, the document URLs for the copies, theidentifiers that identify the copies in the repository server, thecopies and their fingerprints, and a copy and its list of similar copiesare maintained using tables in a relational database system. Thesetables may of course take many forms other than the forms disclosedherein, and beyond that, any arrangement of data structures that permitsthe necessary relationships to be represented will work as well as therelational tables. A given implementation of the invention may notperform all of the operations performed by the preferred embodiment ormay perform operations that the preferred embodiment does not perform.The user interface for the preferred embodiment is of course determinedby the requirements of the http protocol, by the operations performed bythe preferred embodiment, and by the taste of the inventor, and manyother user interfaces are possible.

With the fingerprints, too, many details of the preferred embodiment area consequence of the fact that the fingerprints are designed to be madefrom HTML documents, but the techniques described herein for making andcomparing fingerprints may be easily adapted to any form of documentwhich has structural components as well as content.

For all of the foregoing reasons, the Detailed Description is to beregarded as being in all respects exemplary and not restrictive, and thebreadth of the invention disclosed herein is to be determined not fromthe Detailed Description, but rather from the claims as interpreted withthe full breadth permitted by the patent laws.

1. A method of comparing digital documents, the method comprising thesteps of: making fingerprints of the documents to be compared; andcomparing the fingerprints to determine a similarity value indicating adegree of similarity of the documents being compared, the similarityvalue being capable of expressing degrees of similarity in addition toidentical or not identical.
 2. The method set forth in claim 1 whereinthe digital documents include links to other digital documents and themethod further comprises the step of: determining from a comparison ofthe links in the documents to be compared whether the documents aresimilar enough to justify performance of the step of comparingfingerprints.
 3. The method set forth in claim 2 wherein: in the step ofdetermining from a comparison of the links, the numbers of links in thedocuments are compared.
 4. The method set forth in claim 2 wherein: inthe step of determining from a comparison of the links, the destinationsof the links in the documents are compared.
 5. The method set forth inclaim 1 wherein: the digital documents are identified by identifiers;and the method includes the step of relating the fingerprint for adigital document to the digital document's identifier, whereby digitaldocuments whose identifiers are known and that have fingerprints may becompared without reference to the documents or copies thereof.
 6. Themethod set forth in claim 5 wherein: the identifiers are documentlocators used to locate the documents in a network.
 7. The method setforth in claim 1 further comprising the step of: relating a given one ofthe digital documents to similarity values for a set of other ones ofthe digital documents.
 8. The method set forth in claim 7 wherein: thedigital documents are identified by identifiers; and in the step ofrelating, the identifier for the given one of the digital documents isrelated to identifiers and similarity values for the set of other onesof the digital documents.
 9. The method set forth in claim 8 wherein:the identifiers are document locators used to locate the documents in anetwork.
 10. A data storage device characterized in that: the datastorage device contains code which when executed in a processorimplements the method set forth in claim
 1. 11. A method of making afingerprint for a digital document that contains both structuralinformation and content information, the method comprising the steps of:encoding the structural information using a first encoding thatpreserves semantic information about the structural information; andencoding the content information using a second encoding.
 12. The methodset forth in claim 11 wherein: in the step of encoding the structuralinformation, the structural information is encoded in an order in whichthe structural information occurs in the digital document; and contentinformation is encoded as it is encountered while encoding thestructural information.
 13. The method set forth in claim 12 wherein:the structural information is HTML tags.
 14. A data storage devicecharacterized in that: the data storage device contains code which whenexecuted in a processor implements the method set forth in claim
 11. 15.A method of comparing a first fingerprint for a first digital documentwith a second fingerprint for a second digital document, thefingerprints containing both structural and content information from thedigital documents and being made by encoding the structural informationusing a first encoding that preserves semantic information about thestructural information and encoding the content information using asecond encoding and the method comprising the steps of:
 1. finding anencoding of structural information in the first fingerprint;
 2. findinga substring in the second fingerprint that matches a substring in thefirst fingerprint that begins at the found encoding;
 3. adding thelength of the found substring to a running length total;
 4. findinganother encoding of structural information in the first fingerprint thatis not contained in any found substring and repeating steps 1-3 with theother encoding;
 5. repeating steps 1-4 until no further encodings ofstructural information can be found in step 4; and
 6. using the lengthof one of the fingerprints and the running length total to compute asimilarity value.
 16. A data storage device characterized in that: thedata storage device contains code which when executed in a processorimplements the method set forth in claim
 15. 17. A fingerprint for adigital document, the digital document including both structuralinformation and content information and the fingerprint comprising: astructural encoding portion in which a first encoding preserves semanticinformation about components of the digital document's structuralinformation; and a content encoding portion in which a second encodingpreserves content information about components of the digital document'scontent, whereby a degree of similarity other than identity or lackthereof between two digital documents is determinable by comparing thefingerprints belonging to the digital documents.
 18. The fingerprint setforth in claim 17 wherein: components of the structural encoding portionand components of the content encoding portion occur in the fingerprintin an order in which the components encoded in the encoding portionsoccur in the digital document.
 19. The fingerprint set forth in claim 18wherein: in the digital document, the components are nested.
 20. Thefingerprint set forth in claim 18 wherein: the components of thestructural information are HTML tags
 21. A data storage devicecharacterized in that: the data storage device contains the fingerprintset forth in claim
 17. 21. A data storage device characterized in that:the data storage device contains the fingerprint set forth in claim 17.